I find that there is a marked improvement in ONE DND, but the classes are not balanced. I thought there was an intention to improve this aspect, but instead it seems to have gotten worse. The already excellent fighter is even stronger because of the Weapon Mastery techniques. The mage is also even more adaptable. The rogue can now do more techniques than the monk without even spending resources. Honestly, I feel mocked. The monk class is really disappointing, I pray you can find a solution.
I recommend going to this link, and write your opinion about the monk. Because frankly they did the bullshit with this monk class redesign in ONE DND.
The best part is that people like you think encouraging spam and abuse of the survey will make WotC think your opinion is any more valid, rather than highlighting how toxic and rabid the people whining about Monks are.
Your stance, and that of many other people whining about the Monk, is that people should just copy-paste your vitriol without thinking for themselves.
Lilith, I have to ask (I did once before but never got an answer), do you think the monk, as presented in this UA, is good? Should it be printed as is?
Again monk unarmed strikes can not be light weapons because it messes up other game mechanics. They should not put weapon masteries on their unarmed strikes because it’s a boring system and that would also cause wonky mechanics with some of the sub classes. Every would use Nick or graze if allowed. Monks should be able to use Dex and/or Wis for grapple and shove DC because leg sweeps and martial arts locks and throws use precision and technique to hold or move the opponent not always strength. This should be added to the Martial Arts feature. The term “Monk weapons” needs to be brought back for this class to be backwards compatible. Even if monk weapons are just simple weapon that aren’t two handed. As of now both Kensei and Astral need a rework to fit the base class and both cannot be in the 2024 PHB. I do expect Astral to make the book because they stole its feature and gave it to all monks. I don’t believe monks should have more reactions, but I do believe more things should trigger their reactions. Maybe any creature that stands up from prone or moves 5ft, triggers a reaction from a monk within 5ft of it. At 5th level all monks should get Counterstrike, it would just be riposte, but with an unarmed strike and cost 1 dp.
Shove is a weapon mastery (a combination of either Push or Topple) except the weapon masteries don’t force you to forgo damage to accomplish. Unarmed Strikes don’t need all masteries but I think having some options would be nice. You may consider WM a boring system but I don’t.
I agree that unarmed can’t be light weapons.
You will see how boring the system is after a while. It’s one choice with some choices being clearly better than others. Shove is something anyone can do without a weapon mastery. Push as a weapon mastery is situational. Especially for theater of the mind players. Topple isn’t good until you have extra attack or you have other melee party members. More importantly that can be solved with an improvement to martial arts. There is no need for masteries on unarmed attacks.
More boring than “I attack. <roll dice >. Ok that’s my turn”?
I am all for revising martial arts. I’ve asked for improvements in a lot of areas for monk, especially since they announced the 2024 update. But I’m not holding my breath for big changes. They already went back on the whole “short rest core features” bit. And I’m concerned Warlocks will go back to SR as well.
So my suggestions recently have been tempered by my suspicion that not a whole lot will change. Which is sad.
If that’s how you describe your turns then equally boring. I attack my weapon has push. Okay that’s my turn. Lol
If it takes you 5 minutes to get to your 1-2 d20 rolls for a basic attack, I would much rather play with the guy who decides to push with his basic attack action.
Weapon Masteries could be better sure. But given that it is unlikely that they will become better? It's still infinitely better than the current complete lack of strategy for melee combat beyond positioning to limit enemy damage output. When spells like Fireball are guaranteed to do damage, somebody getting a minimal damage increase on a miss, or being able to push a target 10 feet, or knocking them prone gives Martial classes a role in combat beyond pure DPS. A role that made every sub-par martial build feel useless because the martials are all built around maximum combat output. So cut it out with the "Don't give us Weapon Mastery" unless you are going to advocate for giving anything else because right now the Monk gets jack and squat in terms of what they can do without wasting DP, and Jack's about to leave town.
Again monk unarmed strikes can not be light weapons because it messes up other game mechanics. They should not put weapon masteries on their unarmed strikes because it’s a boring system and that would also cause wonky mechanics with some of the sub classes. Every would use Nick or graze if allowed. Monks should be able to use Dex and/or Wis for grapple and shove DC because leg sweeps and martial arts locks and throws use precision and technique to hold or move the opponent not always strength. This should be added to the Martial Arts feature. The term “Monk weapons” needs to be brought back for this class to be backwards compatible. Even if monk weapons are just simple weapon that aren’t two handed. As of now both Kensei and Astral need a rework to fit the base class and both cannot be in the 2024 PHB. I do expect Astral to make the book because they stole its feature and gave it to all monks. I don’t believe monks should have more reactions, but I do believe more things should trigger their reactions. Maybe any creature that stands up from prone or moves 5ft, triggers a reaction from a monk within 5ft of it. At 5th level all monks should get Counterstrike, it would just be riposte, but with an unarmed strike and cost 1 dp.
Shove is a weapon mastery (a combination of either Push or Topple) except the weapon masteries don’t force you to forgo damage to accomplish. Unarmed Strikes don’t need all masteries but I think having some options would be nice. You may consider WM a boring system but I don’t.
I agree that unarmed can’t be light weapons.
You will see how boring the system is after a while. It’s one choice with some choices being clearly better than others. Shove is something anyone can do without a weapon mastery. Push as a weapon mastery is situational. Especially for theater of the mind players. Topple isn’t good until you have extra attack or you have other melee party members. More importantly that can be solved with an improvement to martial arts. There is no need for masteries on unarmed attacks.
More boring than “I attack. <roll dice >. Ok that’s my turn”?
I am all for revising martial arts. I’ve asked for improvements in a lot of areas for monk, especially since they announced the 2024 update. But I’m not holding my breath for big changes. They already went back on the whole “short rest core features” bit. And I’m concerned Warlocks will go back to SR as well.
So my suggestions recently have been tempered by my suspicion that not a whole lot will change. Which is sad.
If that’s how you describe your turns then equally boring. I attack my weapon has push. Okay that’s my turn. Lol
If it takes you 5 minutes to get to your 1-2 d20 rolls for a basic attack, I would much rather play with the guy who decides to push with his basic attack action.
Weapon Masteries could be better sure. But given that it is unlikely that they will become better? It's still infinitely better than the current complete lack of strategy for melee combat beyond positioning to limit enemy damage output. When spells like Fireball are guaranteed to do damage, somebody getting a minimal damage increase on a miss, or being able to push a target 10 feet, or knocking them prone gives Martial classes a role in combat beyond pure DPS. A role that made every sub-par martial build feel useless because the martials are all built around maximum combat output. So cut it out with the "Don't give us Weapon Mastery" unless you are going to advocate for giving anything else because right now the Monk gets jack and squat in terms of what they can do without wasting DP, and Jack's about to leave town.
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
First part is literally what I would have replied. They greatest damage to open hand technique is the save on addle. Push isn’t really that great for all martials, but is really good on a monk because low AC and mid HP regulates it to a skirmisher. Which I don’t believe they were designed to be. It just is what happened. For most martials push is very situational. Topple is great once they have extra attack, but before extra attack topple is dependent on the rest of the party. If you have ranged attackers and you only have one strike topple is bad. Easy fix for monks is to allow FoB to be a bonus action thing that doesn’t require an attack action first. What I found funny is that is something BG 3 did to make the monk more video game friendly. I think it would help the monk in TTRPG as well. Especially the Hand monk.
The monk weapons thing is too strong because of Nick. Nick breaks monk action economy. They can’t have all those attacks at d6 and d8 in t1. By T2 and T3 it’s probably the Dpr boost the monk actually needs but then it’s a forced option. Taking anything else is vastly nerfing yourself.
The monk class is pushed by Martial Arts toward unarmed combat. Actually, I don't mind it, at least it differs from the fighter class. The monk specializes in unarmed combat while the fighter in armed combat. If one wanted a martial artist who attacks by both means just take a few levels from fighter or take the feat that allows it. What puzzles me, however, is that the monk was given a weapon Mastery (and a limited one at that), when in fact an Unarmed Mastery would be more reasonable given its design in Martil Arts.
Weapon Mastery completely outclassed the open hand techniques. Practically who can access these techniques and uses a weapon can do the same for any attack without having to use any resources. I find it hallucinating that the monk does not have Unarmed Mastery and that Open Hand techniques have not evolved. In fact it is regressed seeing that they have aggounted the Saving Throw on Addle.
NICK could be the monk's lifeline. Between FoB, PD and SotW, it would be great to be able to move unarmed strikes from the bonus action to the action or at least introduce this option directly into the feature itself. The PD and SotW feature would allow Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the action.
Obviously NICK and FoB are OP together, and I think FoB is to be modified into an enhanced attack. FoB allows for more unarmed attacks that are accessible too early compared to the standards of other classes and unbalances the game too much. I therefore thought of this solution:
In place of FoB Iron Strike:
Iron Strike. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed attack, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice your advantage to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend 1 Discipline point. The additional damage is the same as your unarmed attacks.
We know that at the 11th level there should be an enhancement in the class dpr, but at the monk there is a subclass feature. Looking at the monk's 11th level subclass features there is none that enhances dpr, rather they are all concentrated in defense, movement or utility. I think at this point it would make more sense to move the subclass feature to 10th level (like the fighter and rogue) and give the monk a feature similar to this :
11th: Two Extra Bonus Strikes. Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Bonus Unarmed Strikes rather than one.
To solve the problem of lack of magic items that enhance the monk's unarmed attacks, I thought of replacing Empowered Strikes with another feature that asimilates weapons into the body. This should also solve the difference between unarmed and armed combat. By removing FoB, there would no longer be the problem of an exaggerated number of attacks enhanced by magic items at lower levels, making this featrue possible:
6th: Assimilation. You can assimilate one simple weapon with magical properties into your body and use its magical properties with your unarmed attacks. A small tattoo that resembles the item absorbed appears on the skin of your arm. The absorbed item is undetectable by normal means, although the effect is detectable via Detect Magic. The item can be discharged as an action and the weapon is automatically equipped. You must be capable of holding the weapon or it falls to your feet (such as if you had no hands free). This feature can only be used with unarmed attacks and cannot be added to other items that enhance unarmed attacks.
In my opinion, the monk class is too keen on having new features instead of developing the ones it already has. It should take the basic features such as FoB, PD and SotW and improve them as it level up.
We know that at the 11th level there should be an enhancement in the class dpr, but at the monk there is a subclass feature. Looking at the monk's 11th level subclass features there is none that enhances dpr, rather they are all concentrated in defense, movement or utility. I think at this point it would make more sense to move the subclass feature to 10th level (like the fighter and rogue) and give the monk a feature similar to this :
11th: Two Extra Bonus Strikes. Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Bonus Unarmed Strikes rather than one.
So at a point where a Fighter can do 3d12+15 (18-51) damage with regular attacks, you want the Monk to be able to do 4d10+20 (24-60) damage. On top of subclass features and discipline abilities, vs. a Fighter's one use of Action Surge.
And yes, there are many 11th-level Monk subclass features that enhance DPR. But people who complain about Monks don't actually need to know anything about Monks.
Looking at your math, the Fighter can do 6d12+30 (66-102) with Action Surge. That' a massive nova attack. And unlike the Monk, the fighter is likely to have access to multiple pieces of magic weapons and armor which will enhance their damage output and resource management. Nearly all of the Monk's magic items have to be homebrewed because they are either not compatible with Martial Arts, would require armor proficiency, or replicate a utility or mobility feature the Monk already receives by 11th level. Also, by 11th level the Fighter has already had 3 feats/ASIs and is about to receive a 4th, the Monk is on ASI #2 and about to receive a 3rd which will almost certainly have to go into either Dex or Wis just to get their AC to tier 3 average for a martial class.
I realize that optimizing classes isn't popular, but the problem is that you're automatically optimizing the Monk to get it to do things that the other martial classes just do as bog standard. The fighter just gets to hit 3 times while wearing armor made of pure titanium while carrying a creatsword or greataxe and having a 20 stat by level 6. The Monk has to wait to 4th level before a perfectly optimized Monk can get AC above 16, and has to wait to level 11 to get a damage die above d8. It's an insane double standard.
Now have the new subclasses improved? Absolutely! But without the new UA6 subclasses they are still wildly underpowered in combat relative to every other martial class and most of the spellcasters as well. They still have massive resource problems - problems so drastic that WOTC currently thinks giving them an entire extra at-will short rest is the bare minimum necessary fix to keep them viable in Tier 2 play. I want to say that again: WOTC thinks the class is so below-average that it needs to get a full mechanical short rest whenever it wants to keep up with everyone else. By comparison, using the Bonus Action to make 2 Unarmed Strikes without any Attack or Damage Roll bonuses is not a huge power increases even if they do have an unusually high damage die attached to them.
We know that at the 11th level there should be an enhancement in the class dpr, but at the monk there is a subclass feature. Looking at the monk's 11th level subclass features there is none that enhances dpr, rather they are all concentrated in defense, movement or utility. I think at this point it would make more sense to move the subclass feature to 10th level (like the fighter and rogue) and give the monk a feature similar to this :
11th: Two Extra Bonus Strikes. Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Bonus Unarmed Strikes rather than one.
So at a point where a Fighter can do 3d12+15 (18-51) damage with regular attacks, you want the Monk to be able to do 4d10+20 (24-60) damage. On top of subclass features and discipline abilities, vs. a Fighter's one use of Action Surge.
And yes, there are many 11th-level Monk subclass features that enhance DPR. But people who complain about Monks don't actually need to know anything about Monks.
That’s a pretty misleading pair of numbers. One, the fighter probably has magic weapons, so to-hit will be higher. Two, the fighter would use a greatsword or maul, not a greataxe or lance meaning their damage is already 6d6+15, or 21-51. If they are using a lance, chances are they’ll be mounted; which means they have a shield or an offhand weapon. Therefore they have higher AC and around equivalent, if not better movement than the monk, along with higher HP. If they are using an offhand weapon, their damage jumps to 24-62 with a light weapon or 24-68 with a second lance, which is already better than the monk for the same resource cost. The monk also has to expend its bonus action just to keep up with the fighter’s action, and drops behind when the fighter takes advantage of its bonus action.
This lack of bonus action does nothing to the fighter except not being able to use their second wind, and if they needed to do that they would simply not attacked with their bonus action. The monk sacrifices patient defence or step of the wind, significantly reducing desperately needed defence or mobility to get out of melee range. Fighter also has subclass features. For example, battle master adds a ridiculous amount of nova damage to fighter, plus conditions like frightened or prone. Cavalier grants an additional bonus action attack without dual wielding and disadvantage against targets other than it on the target of its Unwavering Mark. Samurai can sacrifice advantage (which it can get via fighting spirit) for an additional attack, along with getting a few temporary hit points.
Monk gets.. a whole 1d8+WIS once per turn, on flurry of blows with mercy. No DPR increase from shadow, just an ability that takes your action and prevents you from attacking at all that turn. Ascendant Dragon can grant resistance or apply frightened in a ten foot radius, which is a bit of a gamble, and again no DPR increase. Astral Self gets +1d8 once per turn, while arms of the astral self are active. Cobalt Soul gets an additional reaction, which MIGHT increase DPR by one unarmed strike or deflect missiles. Drunken Master can cancel disadvantage - neat, but no DPR increase. Don’t know about elements from the UA, but the current one gets nada, just more elemental disciplines. Kensei does have a DPR increase and to hit increase, but only on weapons without a pre-existing bonus. At eleventh level Long Death gets its insane survivability feature, but no DPR increase [though it could be argued extra turns are a DPR increase]. Open Hand gets sanctuary - essential opposite of a DPR increase. Sun Soul gets an AOE, which might or might not deal more damage than your turn would have done. In total, that’s 4 out of 11. And the DPR increases aren’t even very big. Hunter’s Mark outclasses all of them at this level. A 1st level spell. So does Hex.
EDIT: Thanks to @thecactusman17 for also making this point.
Action Surge grants a single attack, not a full round actions. And has very few. With the revision of AS, cannot understand how is considered yet something so wonderful, I see it more like a tactical option.
The magic weapon is easy to fix, just add to the simple weapons list "unarmed equipment", that only applies the same properties than weapons to unarmed attacks. So now you have access to +1, +2, and any magical feature for unarmed combat.
In the case of armor it's harder, because they stack, and with unarmored cannot race against armor + shield + accessories, because the monk could only wear the last ones.
We know that at the 11th level there should be an enhancement in the class dpr, but at the monk there is a subclass feature. Looking at the monk's 11th level subclass features there is none that enhances dpr, rather they are all concentrated in defense, movement or utility. I think at this point it would make more sense to move the subclass feature to 10th level (like the fighter and rogue) and give the monk a feature similar to this :
11th: Two Extra Bonus Strikes. Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Bonus Unarmed Strikes rather than one.
So at a point where a Fighter can do 3d12+15 (18-51) damage with regular attacks, you want the Monk to be able to do 4d10+20 (24-60) damage. On top of subclass features and discipline abilities, vs. a Fighter's one use of Action Surge.
And yes, there are many 11th-level Monk subclass features that enhance DPR. But people who complain about Monks don't actually need to know anything about Monks.
Just lower the martial die 3d8+20 (24-52). And still the fighter can improve damage by GWM feat, or fighting styles, and don't forget that it also has a bonus action to use, with PaM it would have 1d4+5 added. 10d3+1d4+20 (24-54) (64gwm). People need to stop calculating the monk's bonus action as if no one else could use it, it is wrong.
11TH LEVEL: IMPROVED SHADOW STEP: You can draw on your connection to shadow to empower your teleportation. When you use your Shadow Step, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to remove the requirement that you must start and end in Dim Light or Darkness for that use of the feature. As part of this Bonus Action, you can make an Unarmed Strike immediately after the teleportation.
11TH LEVEL: STRIDE OF THE ELEMENTS: When you use your Step of the Wind, you gain a Fly Speed and Swim Speed equal to your Speed for 10 minutes.
11TH LEVEL: FLEET STEP: You can easily stride out of harm’s way; you can use the Step of the Wind option of your Martial Discipline feature without spending any Discipline Points.
Although the shadow monk receives the capability to make an attack after teleporting, this cannot be called an enhancement to dpr, but simply making an extra attack when normally this is nullified by teleportation. Kind of like having access to the NICK technique but with a price. At this point can we say that every class that has NICK has an enhancement to dpr?
Action Surge grants a single attack, not a full round actions. And has very few. With the revision of AS, cannot understand how is considered yet something so wonderful, I see it more like a tactical option.
The magic weapon is easy to fix, just add to the simple weapons list "unarmed equipment", that only applies the same properties than weapons to unarmed attacks. So now you have access to +1, +2, and any magical feature for unarmed combat.
In the case of armor it's harder, because they stack, and with unarmored cannot race against armor + shield + accessories, because the monk could only wear the last ones.
Action Surge grants a full turn of attacks. It’s literally another action; the only thing that changed in the UA was the the actions you could take with the additional action were restricted.
Magic unarmed equipment is fair enough, but it’d automatically be more powerful than weapons because you wouldn’t need War Caster to cast spells with it unless specified (which is an easy fix, granted).
It’s unlikely monks will ever have equivalent AC to other martials, but robust defensive options would fix that - such as making a monk attack action be competitive with a martial attack action, so patient defence wasn’t such a huge sacrifice.
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
First part is literally what I would have replied. They greatest damage to open hand technique is the save on addle. Push isn’t really that great for all martials, but is really good on a monk because low AC and mid HP regulates it to a skirmisher. Which I don’t believe they were designed to be. It just is what happened. For most martials push is very situational. Topple is great once they have extra attack, but before extra attack topple is dependent on the rest of the party. If you have ranged attackers and you only have one strike topple is bad. Easy fix for monks is to allow FoB to be a bonus action thing that doesn’t require an attack action first. What I found funny is that is something BG 3 did to make the monk more video game friendly. I think it would help the monk in TTRPG as well. Especially the Hand monk.
The monk weapons thing is too strong because of Nick. Nick breaks monk action economy. They can’t have all those attacks at d6 and d8 in t1. By T2 and T3 it’s probably the Dpr boost the monk actually needs but then it’s a forced option. Taking anything else is vastly nerfing yourself.
Nick with the MA die for the weapon is: 2.2 extra damage at level 1, 3 extra damage at level 5, 3.5 extra damage at level 11, and 4.2 extra damage at level 17. In comparison for a Fighter, Graze is : 1 extra damage at level 1, 2.8 extra damage at level 5, 5.25 extra damage at level 11, and 7 extra damage at level 20.
Why is Nick OP for Monk, but Graze is fine for Fighter?
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
First part is literally what I would have replied. They greatest damage to open hand technique is the save on addle. Push isn’t really that great for all martials, but is really good on a monk because low AC and mid HP regulates it to a skirmisher. Which I don’t believe they were designed to be. It just is what happened. For most martials push is very situational. Topple is great once they have extra attack, but before extra attack topple is dependent on the rest of the party. If you have ranged attackers and you only have one strike topple is bad. Easy fix for monks is to allow FoB to be a bonus action thing that doesn’t require an attack action first. What I found funny is that is something BG 3 did to make the monk more video game friendly. I think it would help the monk in TTRPG as well. Especially the Hand monk.
The monk weapons thing is too strong because of Nick. Nick breaks monk action economy. They can’t have all those attacks at d6 and d8 in t1. By T2 and T3 it’s probably the Dpr boost the monk actually needs but then it’s a forced option. Taking anything else is vastly nerfing yourself.
Nick with the MA die for the weapon is: 2.2 extra damage at level 1, 3 extra damage at level 5, 3.5 extra damage at level 11, and 4.2 extra damage at level 17. In comparison for a Fighter, Cleave is : 1 extra damage at level 1, 2.8 extra damage at level 5, 5.25 extra damage at level 11, and 7 extra damage at level 20.
Why is Nick OP for Monk, but Cleave is fine for Fighter?
Since FoB is not an ordinary attack, but independent of the attack action, this allows the monk to use NICK by moving the Unarmed Strike Bonus into the action and still use FoB, thus having 4 attacks at 2nd level and 5 attacks at 5th level. Too many for such a low level.
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
Open Hand monk has NOTHING good left in it. If they don't merge it into the base class, just remove it and replace it with a different subclass and I'd still be happier than I am now. Open Hand technique is WORSE than weapon masteries, Wholeness of Body is PATHETIC compared to Lay on Hands, Fleet Step requires you to cut your DPR in half for something rogues can do for free, and Quivering Palm works out to LESS damage than a Beserker Barbarian does for free every round. It is a trap subclass now.
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
First part is literally what I would have replied. They greatest damage to open hand technique is the save on addle. Push isn’t really that great for all martials, but is really good on a monk because low AC and mid HP regulates it to a skirmisher. Which I don’t believe they were designed to be. It just is what happened. For most martials push is very situational. Topple is great once they have extra attack, but before extra attack topple is dependent on the rest of the party. If you have ranged attackers and you only have one strike topple is bad. Easy fix for monks is to allow FoB to be a bonus action thing that doesn’t require an attack action first. What I found funny is that is something BG 3 did to make the monk more video game friendly. I think it would help the monk in TTRPG as well. Especially the Hand monk.
The monk weapons thing is too strong because of Nick. Nick breaks monk action economy. They can’t have all those attacks at d6 and d8 in t1. By T2 and T3 it’s probably the Dpr boost the monk actually needs but then it’s a forced option. Taking anything else is vastly nerfing yourself.
Nick with the MA die for the weapon is: 2.2 extra damage at level 1, 3 extra damage at level 5, 3.5 extra damage at level 11, and 4.2 extra damage at level 17. In comparison for a Fighter, Cleave is : 1 extra damage at level 1, 2.8 extra damage at level 5, 5.25 extra damage at level 11, and 7 extra damage at level 20.
Why is Nick OP for Monk, but Cleave is fine for Fighter?
Since FoB is not an ordinary attack, but independent of the attack action, this allows the monk to use NICK by moving the Unarmed Strike Bonus into the action and still use FoB, thus having 4 attacks at 2nd level and 5 attacks at 5th level. Too many for such a low level.
That is why I think FoB should be modified.
NICK doesn't allow you to add your dex modifier to the damage of the extra attack, unless you have the Two-weapon fighting style which Monk does not have access to. It doesn't matter at all how many attacks you're rolling, it matters how much damage they are doing. As I pointed out above Nick + MA weapon die is only better than Cleave in tier 1. At 5th level a Fighter making 2 attacks with Cleave is dealing more damage than a monk is dealing with 5 with Nick. So why isn't Fighter + Cleave OP?
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
Open Hand monk has NOTHING good left in it. If they don't merge it into the base class, just remove it and replace it with a different subclass and I'd still be happier than I am now. Open Hand technique is WORSE than weapon masteries, Wholeness of Body is PATHETIC compared to Lay on Hands, Fleet Step requires you to cut your DPR in half for something rogues can do for free, and Quivering Palm works out to LESS damage than a Beserker Barbarian does for free every round. It is a trap subclass now.
As I explained earlier, indeed there is a big problem with Open Hand.
The monk class is pushed by Martial Arts toward unarmed combat. Actually, I don't mind it, at least it differs from the fighter class. The monk specializes in unarmed combat while the fighter in armed combat. If one wanted a martial artist who attacks by both means just take a few levels from fighter or take the feat that allows it. What puzzles me, however, is that the monk was given a weapon Mastery (and a limited one at that), when in fact an Unarmed Mastery would be more reasonable given its design in Martil Arts.
Weapon Mastery completely outclassed the open hand techniques. Practically who can access these techniques and uses a weapon can do the same for any attack without having to use any resources. I find it hallucinating that the monk does not have Unarmed Mastery and that Open Hand techniques have not evolved. In fact it is regressed seeing that they have aggounted the Saving Throw on Addle.
Even for Wholeness of Body I agree. They just made it more strange and confusing.
Fleet Step would be interesting only if there would be an Unarmed Mastry NICK as support.
But as for ... Yes it has been nerfed, but also with reason. It was too OP, now at least the cost in discipline points and the result (maybe) match and are more balanced. Although the ranged death threat theme no longer works. 10d12 + monk level ( ~65+17=~82) at 17th level is not enough to threaten a barbarian or fighter, maybe a wizard or sorcerer. But definitely not a Balor. So yes a reasonable technique for 3 discipline points, but no longer has the enchantment of before. If you think the saving throw on Constitution is unlikely to work this makes it even more mediocre bringing it down to a (~82/2=~41) damage. Now I don't have in mind how much damage a Berserker can do, but I agree that the design and its use are not as viable as before.
Open Hand Technique already needs an immediate rewrite by the mere existence of Weapon Masteries, because it's abilities are not at all special anymore as every martial-weapon user can do the same thing equally well or better than them. Honestly, I would not be sad at all if they just merged Open Hand into the baseline monk and included Kensei in the PHB instead of Open Hand.
As nice as having Open Hand as part of the main class as it would be, I think there's really no chance of that happening, Battlemaster's Maneuvers been requested to be added to the fighter base class (and even all martial classes) several times, just cause of its flexibility. I understand that, but we'll be heading into a loop of subclasses being thrown into the main class, main class not being specialized in any single aspect, creating new subclasses to add specialization, asking those subclasses into the main class, repeat... Also Open Hand was the most basic of all monk subclasses, it didn't change what the player's intuition told was the class strategy, attack and FoB, Open Hand Technique was exactly that (wrongly limited to FoB only instead of all unarmed strikes, but what can we do?); the fact that Wholeness of Body and Tranquility felt as bland as they were reinforced the idea of it being THE basic subclass.
I read a suggestion (in this thread or another, I don't remember) of giving the monk the same thing cleric's got in the UA and warlocks with their Pact Boons, a base class specialization (a secondary subclass, basically), it would be interesting to do such a thing in order to reincorporate monk weapons, something like this:
Monk Weapons: all Simple weapons you are proficient with can use your Martial Arts die for the damage rolls instead of their normal damage. In addition, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC of any mastery in your monk weapons.
Tactical Strikes: if you use your Unarmed Strikes to Grapple or Shove a creature, you can use your Dexterity instead of Strength for the DC.
Evasive Build: your unarmored defense is now calculated like this: 10 + Dex/Wis mod (your choice) + half your monk level (rounded up)
Although some people may want all of these present at the same time, making it more like a class customization may fit better.
First part is literally what I would have replied. They greatest damage to open hand technique is the save on addle. Push isn’t really that great for all martials, but is really good on a monk because low AC and mid HP regulates it to a skirmisher. Which I don’t believe they were designed to be. It just is what happened. For most martials push is very situational. Topple is great once they have extra attack, but before extra attack topple is dependent on the rest of the party. If you have ranged attackers and you only have one strike topple is bad. Easy fix for monks is to allow FoB to be a bonus action thing that doesn’t require an attack action first. What I found funny is that is something BG 3 did to make the monk more video game friendly. I think it would help the monk in TTRPG as well. Especially the Hand monk.
The monk weapons thing is too strong because of Nick. Nick breaks monk action economy. They can’t have all those attacks at d6 and d8 in t1. By T2 and T3 it’s probably the Dpr boost the monk actually needs but then it’s a forced option. Taking anything else is vastly nerfing yourself.
Nick with the MA die for the weapon is: 2.2 extra damage at level 1, 3 extra damage at level 5, 3.5 extra damage at level 11, and 4.2 extra damage at level 17. In comparison for a Fighter, Cleave is : 1 extra damage at level 1, 2.8 extra damage at level 5, 5.25 extra damage at level 11, and 7 extra damage at level 20.
Why is Nick OP for Monk, but Cleave is fine for Fighter?
Since FoB is not an ordinary attack, but independent of the attack action, this allows the monk to use NICK by moving the Unarmed Strike Bonus into the action and still use FoB, thus having 4 attacks at 2nd level and 5 attacks at 5th level. Too many for such a low level.
That is why I think FoB should be modified.
NICK doesn't allow you to add your dex modifier to the damage of the extra attack, unless you have the Two-weapon fighting style which Monk does not have access to. It doesn't matter at all how many attacks you're rolling, it matters how much damage they are doing. As I pointed out above Nick + MA weapon die is only better than Cleave in tier 1. At 5th level a Fighter making 2 attacks with Cleave is dealing more damage than a monk is dealing with 5 with Nick. So why isn't Fighter + Cleave OP?
The fighter is OP, I am convinced of that too, and now that it also has Weapon Mastery it is even more so. I only explained why there is no NICK in a possible Unarmed Mastery. But the fact that they haven't even done the Unarmed Mastery perturbs me even more.
Open Hand 3rd level feature: 1 DP = 10 minutes applying the effects to unarmed strikes of the Bonus Action, instead only when using FoB. All the other monks in the UA has the 3rd level feature of type 1 DP = 10 minutes.
For Action Surge I applied the Attack Action definition, which is “one” attack. But later the extra attack one stacks over. Sometimes the chained dispersed rules D&D uses can be more distracting than more complex but unified rules. This feature can become unbalanced, a better one could be limit the extra-attack feature to once per turn, and grant more Action Surges so they could be used more often to others than attack.
I would prefer the unarmed mastery to be something like topple but that's just me.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
The idea being that it's building on the higher damage die that 5e's FS:Unarmed had, which revised its explanation as "if you aren't wielding any other weapons or a shield". That basically works like the Versatile mechanic: Versatile weapons means you need to have both hands available for this weapon in order to get extra damage, and on average it's going to get you an extra point of damage.
And, by being a "Versatile" weapon, that means the unarmed strikes can utilize Topple and Push as secondary Masteries.
I like the folks who think people who actually point out subclass features that contradict their arguments are too stupid to go look up the subclasses when they proceed to lie about them.
And that's what your problem is at the end of the day. You cannot make a single argument for Monks being bad without lying, and in this case you want to lie directly to the people who made the game as if they are too stupid to know how the game they made works.
Do you want to elaborate, or just insult people without explanation?
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Lilith, I have to ask (I did once before but never got an answer), do you think the monk, as presented in this UA, is good? Should it be printed as is?
If not, what would you change?
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
If it takes you 5 minutes to get to your 1-2 d20 rolls for a basic attack, I would much rather play with the guy who decides to push with his basic attack action.
Weapon Masteries could be better sure. But given that it is unlikely that they will become better? It's still infinitely better than the current complete lack of strategy for melee combat beyond positioning to limit enemy damage output. When spells like Fireball are guaranteed to do damage, somebody getting a minimal damage increase on a miss, or being able to push a target 10 feet, or knocking them prone gives Martial classes a role in combat beyond pure DPS. A role that made every sub-par martial build feel useless because the martials are all built around maximum combat output. So cut it out with the "Don't give us Weapon Mastery" unless you are going to advocate for giving anything else because right now the Monk gets jack and squat in terms of what they can do without wasting DP, and Jack's about to leave town.
And Jack is taking Squat with him.
The monk class is pushed by Martial Arts toward unarmed combat. Actually, I don't mind it, at least it differs from the fighter class. The monk specializes in unarmed combat while the fighter in armed combat. If one wanted a martial artist who attacks by both means just take a few levels from fighter or take the feat that allows it. What puzzles me, however, is that the monk was given a weapon Mastery (and a limited one at that), when in fact an Unarmed Mastery would be more reasonable given its design in Martil Arts.
Weapon Mastery completely outclassed the open hand techniques. Practically who can access these techniques and uses a weapon can do the same for any attack without having to use any resources. I find it hallucinating that the monk does not have Unarmed Mastery and that Open Hand techniques have not evolved. In fact it is regressed seeing that they have aggounted the Saving Throw on Addle.
NICK could be the monk's lifeline. Between FoB, PD and SotW, it would be great to be able to move unarmed strikes from the bonus action to the action or at least introduce this option directly into the feature itself. The PD and SotW feature would allow Bonus Unarmed Strike as part of the action.
Obviously NICK and FoB are OP together, and I think FoB is to be modified into an enhanced attack. FoB allows for more unarmed attacks that are accessible too early compared to the standards of other classes and unbalances the game too much. I therefore thought of this solution:
In place of FoB Iron Strike:
Iron Strike. Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an unarmed attack, you can choose to spend 1 Force point and add a Martial Arts die to the damage roll. If you have advantage over a creature, you can decide to sacrifice your advantage to perform an Iron Strike without having to spend 1 Discipline point. The additional damage is the same as your unarmed attacks.
We know that at the 11th level there should be an enhancement in the class dpr, but at the monk there is a subclass feature. Looking at the monk's 11th level subclass features there is none that enhances dpr, rather they are all concentrated in defense, movement or utility. I think at this point it would make more sense to move the subclass feature to 10th level (like the fighter and rogue) and give the monk a feature similar to this :
11th: Two Extra Bonus Strikes. Your Martial Arts feature now confers two extra Bonus Unarmed Strikes rather than one.
To solve the problem of lack of magic items that enhance the monk's unarmed attacks, I thought of replacing Empowered Strikes with another feature that asimilates weapons into the body. This should also solve the difference between unarmed and armed combat. By removing FoB, there would no longer be the problem of an exaggerated number of attacks enhanced by magic items at lower levels, making this featrue possible:
6th: Assimilation. You can assimilate one simple weapon with magical properties into your body and use its magical properties with your unarmed attacks. A small tattoo that resembles the item absorbed appears on the skin of your arm. The absorbed item is undetectable by normal means, although the effect is detectable via Detect Magic. The item can be discharged as an action and the weapon is automatically equipped. You must be capable of holding the weapon or it falls to your feet (such as if you had no hands free). This feature can only be used with unarmed attacks and cannot be added to other items that enhance unarmed attacks.
In my opinion, the monk class is too keen on having new features instead of developing the ones it already has. It should take the basic features such as FoB, PD and SotW and improve them as it level up.
Looking at your math, the Fighter can do 6d12+30 (66-102) with Action Surge. That' a massive nova attack. And unlike the Monk, the fighter is likely to have access to multiple pieces of magic weapons and armor which will enhance their damage output and resource management. Nearly all of the Monk's magic items have to be homebrewed because they are either not compatible with Martial Arts, would require armor proficiency, or replicate a utility or mobility feature the Monk already receives by 11th level. Also, by 11th level the Fighter has already had 3 feats/ASIs and is about to receive a 4th, the Monk is on ASI #2 and about to receive a 3rd which will almost certainly have to go into either Dex or Wis just to get their AC to tier 3 average for a martial class.
I realize that optimizing classes isn't popular, but the problem is that you're automatically optimizing the Monk to get it to do things that the other martial classes just do as bog standard. The fighter just gets to hit 3 times while wearing armor made of pure titanium while carrying a creatsword or greataxe and having a 20 stat by level 6. The Monk has to wait to 4th level before a perfectly optimized Monk can get AC above 16, and has to wait to level 11 to get a damage die above d8. It's an insane double standard.
Now have the new subclasses improved? Absolutely! But without the new UA6 subclasses they are still wildly underpowered in combat relative to every other martial class and most of the spellcasters as well. They still have massive resource problems - problems so drastic that WOTC currently thinks giving them an entire extra at-will short rest is the bare minimum necessary fix to keep them viable in Tier 2 play. I want to say that again: WOTC thinks the class is so below-average that it needs to get a full mechanical short rest whenever it wants to keep up with everyone else. By comparison, using the Bonus Action to make 2 Unarmed Strikes without any Attack or Damage Roll bonuses is not a huge power increases even if they do have an unusually high damage die attached to them.
That’s a pretty misleading pair of numbers. One, the fighter probably has magic weapons, so to-hit will be higher. Two, the fighter would use a greatsword or maul, not a greataxe or lance meaning their damage is already 6d6+15, or 21-51. If they are using a lance, chances are they’ll be mounted; which means they have a shield or an offhand weapon. Therefore they have higher AC and around equivalent, if not better movement than the monk, along with higher HP. If they are using an offhand weapon, their damage jumps to 24-62 with a light weapon or 24-68 with a second lance, which is already better than the monk for the same resource cost. The monk also has to expend its bonus action just to keep up with the fighter’s action, and drops behind when the fighter takes advantage of its bonus action.
This lack of bonus action does nothing to the fighter except not being able to use their second wind, and if they needed to do that they would simply not attacked with their bonus action. The monk sacrifices patient defence or step of the wind, significantly reducing desperately needed defence or mobility to get out of melee range. Fighter also has subclass features. For example, battle master adds a ridiculous amount of nova damage to fighter, plus conditions like frightened or prone. Cavalier grants an additional bonus action attack without dual wielding and disadvantage against targets other than it on the target of its Unwavering Mark. Samurai can sacrifice advantage (which it can get via fighting spirit) for an additional attack, along with getting a few temporary hit points.
Monk gets.. a whole 1d8+WIS once per turn, on flurry of blows with mercy. No DPR increase from shadow, just an ability that takes your action and prevents you from attacking at all that turn. Ascendant Dragon can grant resistance or apply frightened in a ten foot radius, which is a bit of a gamble, and again no DPR increase. Astral Self gets +1d8 once per turn, while arms of the astral self are active. Cobalt Soul gets an additional reaction, which MIGHT increase DPR by one unarmed strike or deflect missiles. Drunken Master can cancel disadvantage - neat, but no DPR increase. Don’t know about elements from the UA, but the current one gets nada, just more elemental disciplines. Kensei does have a DPR increase and to hit increase, but only on weapons without a pre-existing bonus. At eleventh level Long Death gets its insane survivability feature, but no DPR increase [though it could be argued extra turns are a DPR increase]. Open Hand gets sanctuary - essential opposite of a DPR increase. Sun Soul gets an AOE, which might or might not deal more damage than your turn would have done. In total, that’s 4 out of 11. And the DPR increases aren’t even very big. Hunter’s Mark outclasses all of them at this level. A 1st level spell. So does Hex.
EDIT: Thanks to @thecactusman17 for also making this point.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Action Surge grants a single attack, not a full round actions. And has very few. With the revision of AS, cannot understand how is considered yet something so wonderful, I see it more like a tactical option.
The magic weapon is easy to fix, just add to the simple weapons list "unarmed equipment", that only applies the same properties than weapons to unarmed attacks. So now you have access to +1, +2, and any magical feature for unarmed combat.
In the case of armor it's harder, because they stack, and with unarmored cannot race against armor + shield + accessories, because the monk could only wear the last ones.
Just lower the martial die 3d8+20 (24-52). And still the fighter can improve damage by GWM feat, or fighting styles, and don't forget that it also has a bonus action to use, with PaM it would have 1d4+5 added. 10d3+1d4+20 (24-54) (64gwm). People need to stop calculating the monk's bonus action as if no one else could use it, it is wrong.
11TH LEVEL: IMPROVED SHADOW STEP: You can draw on your connection to shadow to empower your teleportation. When you use your Shadow Step, you can spend 1 Discipline Point to remove the requirement that you must start and end in Dim Light or Darkness for that use of the feature. As part of this Bonus Action, you can make an Unarmed Strike immediately after the teleportation.
11TH LEVEL: STRIDE OF THE ELEMENTS: When you use your Step of the Wind, you gain a Fly Speed and Swim Speed equal to your Speed for 10 minutes.
11TH LEVEL: FLEET STEP: You can easily stride out of harm’s way; you can use the Step of the Wind option of your Martial Discipline feature without spending any Discipline Points.
Although the shadow monk receives the capability to make an attack after teleporting, this cannot be called an enhancement to dpr, but simply making an extra attack when normally this is nullified by teleportation. Kind of like having access to the NICK technique but with a price. At this point can we say that every class that has NICK has an enhancement to dpr?
Action Surge grants a full turn of attacks. It’s literally another action; the only thing that changed in the UA was the the actions you could take with the additional action were restricted.
Magic unarmed equipment is fair enough, but it’d automatically be more powerful than weapons because you wouldn’t need War Caster to cast spells with it unless specified (which is an easy fix, granted).
It’s unlikely monks will ever have equivalent AC to other martials, but robust defensive options would fix that - such as making a monk attack action be competitive with a martial attack action, so patient defence wasn’t such a huge sacrifice.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Nick with the MA die for the weapon is: 2.2 extra damage at level 1, 3 extra damage at level 5, 3.5 extra damage at level 11, and 4.2 extra damage at level 17.
In comparison for a Fighter, Graze is : 1 extra damage at level 1, 2.8 extra damage at level 5, 5.25 extra damage at level 11, and 7 extra damage at level 20.
Why is Nick OP for Monk, but Graze is fine for Fighter?
Since FoB is not an ordinary attack, but independent of the attack action, this allows the monk to use NICK by moving the Unarmed Strike Bonus into the action and still use FoB, thus having 4 attacks at 2nd level and 5 attacks at 5th level. Too many for such a low level.
That is why I think FoB should be modified.
Open Hand monk has NOTHING good left in it. If they don't merge it into the base class, just remove it and replace it with a different subclass and I'd still be happier than I am now. Open Hand technique is WORSE than weapon masteries, Wholeness of Body is PATHETIC compared to Lay on Hands, Fleet Step requires you to cut your DPR in half for something rogues can do for free, and Quivering Palm works out to LESS damage than a Beserker Barbarian does for free every round. It is a trap subclass now.
NICK doesn't allow you to add your dex modifier to the damage of the extra attack, unless you have the Two-weapon fighting style which Monk does not have access to. It doesn't matter at all how many attacks you're rolling, it matters how much damage they are doing. As I pointed out above Nick + MA weapon die is only better than Cleave in tier 1. At 5th level a Fighter making 2 attacks with Cleave is dealing more damage than a monk is dealing with 5 with Nick. So why isn't Fighter + Cleave OP?
As I explained earlier, indeed there is a big problem with Open Hand.
Even for Wholeness of Body I agree. They just made it more strange and confusing.
Fleet Step would be interesting only if there would be an Unarmed Mastry NICK as support.
But as for ... Yes it has been nerfed, but also with reason. It was too OP, now at least the cost in discipline points and the result (maybe) match and are more balanced. Although the ranged death threat theme no longer works. 10d12 + monk level ( ~65+17=~82) at 17th level is not enough to threaten a barbarian or fighter, maybe a wizard or sorcerer. But definitely not a Balor. So yes a reasonable technique for 3 discipline points, but no longer has the enchantment of before. If you think the saving throw on Constitution is unlikely to work this makes it even more mediocre bringing it down to a (~82/2=~41) damage.
Now I don't have in mind how much damage a Berserker can do, but I agree that the design and its use are not as viable as before.
At level 2 with 4 rounds of combat between SRs:
Monk: Nick + MA as weapon die to monk weapons, wielding 2 daggers
DPR = 0.65*(3.5+3)[Action] + 0.65*3.5[Nick] + 0.65*(3.5+3)[BA attack] + 0.65*0.5*(3.5+3)[FoB] = 12.8 DPR
Fighter: Greatsword + GWF + Graze
DPR = (0.65*(3.5*2+3+1.2[GWF]) + 0.35*3)*1.25[Action Surge]= 10.4 DPR
Fighter: 2 Shortswords + TWF + Vex
DPR = 0.65*(3.5+3)[Action] + 0.8*((3.5+3)[BA] + 0.83*0.25*(3.5+3)[Action Surge] = 13.2 DPR <- Fighter deals more DPR than Monk
Fighter: Greataxe + GWF + Cleave
DPR = (0.65*(6.5+3+1.2[GWF])*1.25[Action Surge] + 0.5*0.65*6.5[Cleave]) = 10.8 DPR
At level 5 with 10 rounds of combat between SRs:
Monk: Nick + MA as weapon die to monk weapons, wielding 2 daggers
DPR = 0.65*(4.5+4)*2[Action] + 0.65*4.5[Nick] + 0.65*(4.5+4)[BA attack] + 0.65*0.5*(4.5+4)[FoB] = 22.2 DPR
Fighter: Greatsword + GWF + Graze + GWM
DPR = (0.65*(3.5*2+4+1.2[GWF])*2 + 0.35*4*2)*1.1[Action Surge]+4[GWM] = 24.5 DPR <- Fighter deal more DPR than Monk
Fighter: Rapier + Shortsword + TWF + Vex + Dual Wielder
DPR = 0.65*(4.5+4)*2[Action] + 0.8*((3.5+4)[BA] + 0.83*0.1*2*(4.5+4)[Action Surge] = 18.5 DPR
Fighter: Greataxe + GWF + Cleave + GWM
DPR = (0.65*(6.5+4 +1.2[GWF])*2*1.1[Action Surge] + 0.5*0.65*6.5[Cleave])+4[GWM] = 22.8 DPR <- Fighter deal more DPR than Monk
Why is Monk getting the MA die for weapons OP but Fighter is fine?
The fighter is OP, I am convinced of that too, and now that it also has Weapon Mastery it is even more so. I only explained why there is no NICK in a possible Unarmed Mastery. But the fact that they haven't even done the Unarmed Mastery perturbs me even more.
Open Hand 3rd level feature: 1 DP = 10 minutes applying the effects to unarmed strikes of the Bonus Action, instead only when using FoB. All the other monks in the UA has the 3rd level feature of type 1 DP = 10 minutes.
For Action Surge I applied the Attack Action definition, which is “one” attack. But later the extra attack one stacks over. Sometimes the chained dispersed rules D&D uses can be more distracting than more complex but unified rules. This feature can become unbalanced, a better one could be limit the extra-attack feature to once per turn, and grant more Action Surges so they could be used more often to others than attack.
I would prefer the unarmed mastery to be something like topple but that's just me.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
In my current iteration, I am setting Unarmed Strikes as a simple weapon that is:
Damage: 1 bludgeoning
Properties: Light, Versatile (+1 bludgeoning damage)
Mastery: Nick
The idea being that it's building on the higher damage die that 5e's FS:Unarmed had, which revised its explanation as "if you aren't wielding any other weapons or a shield". That basically works like the Versatile mechanic: Versatile weapons means you need to have both hands available for this weapon in order to get extra damage, and on average it's going to get you an extra point of damage.
And, by being a "Versatile" weapon, that means the unarmed strikes can utilize Topple and Push as secondary Masteries.
Do you want to elaborate, or just insult people without explanation?
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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